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Is it? As the tech lead, it is his responsibility or fault either way that such errors do not make it the code or find them if that happens. If the project is d

Is it? As the tech lead, it is his responsibility or fault either way that such errors do not make it the code or find them if that happens. If the project is delayed and you miss some big sale day or something, it does not sound so unfair that his bonus is cut. I am not fully sold on the idea of him losing a bonus is 100% because he defended the person who did it.

thevagrant 3y ago
Considering how successful the game was, it was unfair. It would be different if it had flopped or the bug was released and impacted sales significantly
h0l0cube 3y ago
> Is it? It absolutely is. Timothy brought the company a whole new profitable franchise. Based on that alone it would have been fair to compensate him well. That he was also in the middle of building the sequel under duress made it also the sensible thing to do. Late 90s and 00s games companies were toxic places to work, and getting demoted or fired due to a simple off-by-one error in a memory unsafe language is not reasonable, it’s extreme. But it was still the norm for the unhinged management of these games companies that couldn’t grasp the huge risks involved with games development, and were also unwilling to appropriately budget or compensate their staff for it.
- gravypod 3y ago
  > But it was still the norm for the unhinged management of these games companies The oddest thing to me is that he claims he heard about this when opening the check. I don't know how I would have reacted to that but it would not be well. Definitely not with enough grace to go home before writing a resignation.
gravypod 3y ago
> If the project is delayed and you miss some big sale day or something, it does not sound so unfair that his bonus is cut. If the Goose needs a few more days to lay the golden egg should you reduce it's food budget? Seems kind of short sighted to punish your high performers. I can think of multiple times this happened in my career. > I am not fully sold on the idea of him losing a bonus is 100% because he defended the person who did it. He seems to say in the video that part of it was not fingering who did the bug and the other was that his boss wanted someone else's bonus to be higher so he removed some of Tim's bonus.
- thrwy41 3y ago
  Another post here says "it took weeks 10+ hours day to fins it", which sounds like a major fuck up if that results with you are missing a deadline or cutting features
  - h0l0cube 3y ago
    > a major fuck up Any experienced programmer knows off-by-one errors are very common. There’s even a joke about it: > There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors. The real fuck up is the common sin of games industry ownership and management that applies unrealistic timelines to AAA games development which, especially in the days of in-house built render engines, were some of the most complicated software engineering endeavours around.
adql 3y ago
The point of a bonus is to motivate worker to give their best. But if they are already doing that (say, they are making a video game and it is their passion), work extra hours, and on top of that get their bonus cut coz of nothing they can reasonably affect, that just kills morale
sogen 3y ago
Just read newest Zelda game got delayed 1 year to polish it.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  And Valve rewrote Half-Life almost from scratch when they finished it and realized that it sucked. I don't think anybody lost any bonuses over that decision. Not in the long run. Sure, running late on a project is a Bad Thing, but nobody will remember it if you eventually get a quality product out the door.
  - sogen 3y ago
    Yeah, and look at Valve now: TF2, all the half life games, Portal! Edit: Steam and the Steam Deck!
wyldfire 3y ago
I think you can read your boss - if they look pissed that you don't disclose the name or they keep asking - that's pretty plain. Is Cain responsible for the quality? Yes. But IMO the boss should have delegated handling of the issue to him instead of retaliating for apparent insubordination. He could legitimately complain that Cain provided insufficient process and controls to prevent junior devs from making critical errors. But looking for a scapegoat is indicative of bad management.
ajkjk 3y ago
Sounds like a better outcome would be firing his boss for the stupid idea that someone's bonus should depend on a largely unpredictable process working predictably.
throwaway5959 3y ago
Blameless postmortems are blameless for a reason. People shouldn’t get fired (or really even reprimanded) for bugs. It sets up the wrong incentives.
otikik 3y ago
Forgive me for saying this, but you don’t seem to know how programming works. Requiring that a program doesn’t have bugs, or that the bugs are found immediately, is like asking the wind not to blow.

thevagrant 3y ago

Considering how successful the game was, it was unfair. It would be different if it had flopped or the bug was released and impacted sales significantly

h0l0cube 3y ago

> Is it? It absolutely is. Timothy brought the company a whole new profitable franchise. Based on that alone it would have been fair to compensate him well. That he was also in the middle of building the sequel under duress made it also the sensible thing to do. Late 90s and 00s games companies were toxic places to work, and getting demoted or fired due to a simple off-by-one error in a memory unsafe language is not reasonable, it’s extreme. But it was still the norm for the unhinged management of these games companies that couldn’t grasp the huge risks involved with games development, and were also unwilling to appropriately budget or compensate their staff for it.

gravypod 3y ago
> But it was still the norm for the unhinged management of these games companies The oddest thing to me is that he claims he heard about this when opening the check. I don't know how I would have reacted to that but it would not be well. Definitely not with enough grace to go home before writing a resignation.

gravypod 3y ago

> If the project is delayed and you miss some big sale day or something, it does not sound so unfair that his bonus is cut. If the Goose needs a few more days to lay the golden egg should you reduce it's food budget? Seems kind of short sighted to punish your high performers. I can think of multiple times this happened in my career. > I am not fully sold on the idea of him losing a bonus is 100% because he defended the person who did it. He seems to say in the video that part of it was not fingering who did the bug and the other was that his boss wanted someone else's bonus to be higher so he removed some of Tim's bonus.

thrwy41 3y ago
Another post here says "it took weeks 10+ hours day to fins it", which sounds like a major fuck up if that results with you are missing a deadline or cutting features
- h0l0cube 3y ago
  > a major fuck up Any experienced programmer knows off-by-one errors are very common. There’s even a joke about it: > There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors. The real fuck up is the common sin of games industry ownership and management that applies unrealistic timelines to AAA games development which, especially in the days of in-house built render engines, were some of the most complicated software engineering endeavours around.

adql 3y ago

The point of a bonus is to motivate worker to give their best. But if they are already doing that (say, they are making a video game and it is their passion), work extra hours, and on top of that get their bonus cut coz of nothing they can reasonably affect, that just kills morale

sogen 3y ago

Just read newest Zelda game got delayed 1 year to polish it.

CamperBob2 3y ago
And Valve rewrote Half-Life almost from scratch when they finished it and realized that it sucked. I don't think anybody lost any bonuses over that decision. Not in the long run. Sure, running late on a project is a Bad Thing, but nobody will remember it if you eventually get a quality product out the door.
- sogen 3y ago
  Yeah, and look at Valve now: TF2, all the half life games, Portal! Edit: Steam and the Steam Deck!

wyldfire 3y ago

I think you can read your boss - if they look pissed that you don't disclose the name or they keep asking - that's pretty plain. Is Cain responsible for the quality? Yes. But IMO the boss should have delegated handling of the issue to him instead of retaliating for apparent insubordination. He could legitimately complain that Cain provided insufficient process and controls to prevent junior devs from making critical errors. But looking for a scapegoat is indicative of bad management.

ajkjk 3y ago

Sounds like a better outcome would be firing his boss for the stupid idea that someone's bonus should depend on a largely unpredictable process working predictably.

throwaway5959 3y ago

Blameless postmortems are blameless for a reason. People shouldn’t get fired (or really even reprimanded) for bugs. It sets up the wrong incentives.

otikik 3y ago

Forgive me for saying this, but you don’t seem to know how programming works. Requiring that a program doesn’t have bugs, or that the bugs are found immediately, is like asking the wind not to blow.